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“Life can’t form in the emptiness of space” obviously isn’t a fundamental axiom. I’m not sure why you think I was claiming that. I even caveated with “less like

“Life can’t form in the emptiness of space” obviously isn’t a fundamental axiom. I’m not sure why you think I was claiming that. I even caveated with “less likely” with Boltzmann brains in mind — the probability is never exactly zero. And nobody seriously believes that life on Earth started in intergalactic space, meaning outside of the Milky Way entirely. How would it even get here? Even the most exotic theories require some non-trivial density of matter for life to form. Nobody believes life was actually “Boltzmann-brained” into existence from a literal void — those are very distinct levels of implausible, and both are distractions from the issue at hand. My point is that however specific your arguments are for exactly why life forming in intergalactic void is impossible (or “vastly unlikely” if you want to be pedantic), if you reject the notion that you should only expect to find yourself in places where life is possible (or “not vastly unlikely”), what does it matter? By appealing to the particular reasons why intergalactic space is inhospitable to life, you’re implicitly assuming that the plausibility of life is somehow pertinent to what conditions we should expect to observe in our local environment, given that we exist. That assumption is the anthropic principle.

mannykannot 6y ago
> “Life can’t form in the emptiness of space” obviously isn’t a fundamental axiom. I’m not sure why you think I was claiming that. I am not claiming you said that, I am pointing out that there are better answers (more fundamental, more specific) than “life can’t form in the emptiness of space” to the question “why am I not in intergalactic space right now?”, which is what you asked for in the post I was replying to. Note that when people begin a sentence "Putting aside..." they do so precisely because they do not think the things being put aside are relevant to the discussion. > By appealing to the particular reasons why intergalactic space is inhospitable to life, you’re implicitly assuming that the plausibility of life is somehow pertinent to what conditions we should expect to observe in our local environment, given that we exist. That assumption is the anthropic principle. This is, to put it mildly, a highly idiosyncratic definition of the anthropic principle, which does not seem to accord with the usual definitions of either the strong or weak anthropic principle, as given, for example, in Wikipedia [1]. Both versions of the anthropic principle are explicitly cosmological ones, and you appear to be trying to extend it to cover more mundane issues. The problem with your attempt to do so is that, as discussed previously at some length, there are better explanations for the cases you have given, that do not depend on the anthropic principle. As an additional premise, your extended AP is unnecessary; these better explanations have no need of it, while still yeilding more fundamental and specific explanations than your extended AP can. As an alternative explanation, your extended AP is inferior, as you demonstrated when you resorted to the better explanations in an attempt to justify your use of it! Furthermore, several of your examples are trivial, in that no-one seriously thinks that the scenarios you present are feasible; invoking a somewhat epistemologically-suspect cosmological principle to tackle them is like using a sledgehammer (with a loose head!) to crack a nut. Your cases may be consistent with your extended AP, but that does not make it the best explanation of them, let alone that they have no other answer, as you claimed in your original post. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  I think the disagreement here is about the idea that you can explain a huge collection of phenomenon by saying "anthropic principle", or you can use logic and math to reduce them all to a few root phenomena that are explainable by "anthropic principle".

mannykannot 6y ago

> “Life can’t form in the emptiness of space” obviously isn’t a fundamental axiom. I’m not sure why you think I was claiming that. I am not claiming you said that, I am pointing out that there are better answers (more fundamental, more specific) than “life can’t form in the emptiness of space” to the question “why am I not in intergalactic space right now?”, which is what you asked for in the post I was replying to. Note that when people begin a sentence "Putting aside..." they do so precisely because they do not think the things being put aside are relevant to the discussion. > By appealing to the particular reasons why intergalactic space is inhospitable to life, you’re implicitly assuming that the plausibility of life is somehow pertinent to what conditions we should expect to observe in our local environment, given that we exist. That assumption is the anthropic principle. This is, to put it mildly, a highly idiosyncratic definition of the anthropic principle, which does not seem to accord with the usual definitions of either the strong or weak anthropic principle, as given, for example, in Wikipedia [1]. Both versions of the anthropic principle are explicitly cosmological ones, and you appear to be trying to extend it to cover more mundane issues. The problem with your attempt to do so is that, as discussed previously at some length, there are better explanations for the cases you have given, that do not depend on the anthropic principle. As an additional premise, your extended AP is unnecessary; these better explanations have no need of it, while still yeilding more fundamental and specific explanations than your extended AP can. As an alternative explanation, your extended AP is inferior, as you demonstrated when you resorted to the better explanations in an attempt to justify your use of it! Furthermore, several of your examples are trivial, in that no-one seriously thinks that the scenarios you present are feasible; invoking a somewhat epistemologically-suspect cosmological principle to tackle them is like using a sledgehammer (with a loose head!) to crack a nut. Your cases may be consistent with your extended AP, but that does not make it the best explanation of them, let alone that they have no other answer, as you claimed in your original post. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

srtjstjsj 6y ago
I think the disagreement here is about the idea that you can explain a huge collection of phenomenon by saying "anthropic principle", or you can use logic and math to reduce them all to a few root phenomena that are explainable by "anthropic principle".